Whiskey Lullaby
by IrreversibleMistake-xx
Summary: Ok, this has been done to death but i thought that it should be represented here. WOO I DID IT FIRST! Does victory dance THIS STORY CONTAINS CHARECTER DEATH! I think i did it quite well, but i'm not the reviwewer. You are, SO REVIEW!


TITLE: Whiskey Lullaby  
AUTHOR: Moi!!  
DATE: Haven't a clue  
RATING: T, just for safety  
CHEESE FACTOR: 4/5  
AWWW! FACTOR: 4/5  
KLEENEX FACTOR: 5/5

SPOILERS: None.  
CATEGORY: High School Musical Tragedy  
WARNINGS: CHARACTER DEATH and ALCOHOLISM. You mean you haven't read A Whiskey Lullaby story before??? You're lucky.  
SUMMARY: Troy needed something to help him forget Gabriella, forget her betrayal. He'd only been away for a year. So, he turned to the bottle. Less than a year after that he was gone. Leaving a lonely, grieving, remorseful Gabriella behind.

DISCLAIMERS: DO NOT OWN HSM. Don't sue.  
DEDICATION: Brad Paisley for this awesome song and Zac's Momma for giving birth to such perfect ness.  
AUTHOR NOTES The guys are 18-19 in this story, after graduation.

I swore I would never kill of a character that Zac Efron played, but this just HAD to be done.

This has been done to death in every other section, so I figured why not here?

Important note

This is a long story, for me. Any one who wants a shorter version, start at the asterisks.

**Song lyrics**  
FEEDBACK: Yes please.

Troy dragged his bag out of the back of his truck. Hitching his small training bag over his shoulder and pulling the larger case behind him, he made his way up the stairs to his and Gabriella's flat. He'd been away for a month on a sports enrichment trip, leaving Gabriella to deal with the stresses of freshman college year by herself. But she knew that if he wanted to keep his scholarship, and God's knows he did, then he had to go and do this. Still, it left her awfully lonely.

He smiled. This was going to be a great surprise for her. Over the phone, he'd said he was going to be coming home the day after. Plucking his long gone unused key from his pocket, he quietly creaked open the door and slipped through the crack. The apartment was silent. Suddenly, he heard a smash and Gabriella's scream. Dropping the bag's in a flash, he dashed to where the sound had come from, their bedroom. Crashing through the door, he wished he was blind. Gabriella was lying, in nothing but her underwear on their bed, legs wrapped around some guy, her hand lying on the bedside table. Nearby a glass lay in pieces on the floor, the bed bobbed gently. Troy stood staring for a moment, before slowly turning around and closing the door. The last fragment of the room he saw was Gabriella pushing the guy off her, wrapping a silken night-jacket around herself and rushing towards the already closed door.

"Troy, Wait!"

"I'm coming, hold on," Chad Danforth screeched at the door to his studio apartment. Nobody ever said he was the gentlest of souls. Unlatching the safety hook, he opened the door wide to greet his best friend. However, as soon as he'd extended his arms wide to embrace his long time buddy, the person opposite him stumbled and fell face first at Chad. Grabbing Troy under the arms, Chad pushed him backwards so they were at eye level. Chad's glistening chocolate brown eyes scanned over Troy sadly, as Troy's own bloodshot, glazed over eyes stayed staring, staring at nothing.

"Well, this is one way to greet you faithful best friend, isn't it," Chad mumbled, helping his stumbling friend onto his sofa. Troy raised the bottle in his hand towards his lips.

"Faithful. HA!" He slurred the laugh short, snappy and angry. Chad pushed the bottle back towards the ground.

"Uh...you want to talk?" Chad asked, unsure of what Troy meant or what he should do. He wasn't the _most_ caring soul either, but he was caring enough.

"About what?" Troy asked, staring at the ground.

"Come on Troy, you've never had more than a glass of weak champagne at my post-graduation party. And you've turned up at my door with a bottle of," he paused to look at cheesy label on the bottle, "Whiskey,"

'_Wow,'_ Chad thought.

"Gabriella..."Troy said, a stray tear dripping off the end off his nose. The sentence trailed off.

"What about Gabriella?" Chad said quietly.

"She cheated on me." There was nothing else that needed to be said.

'Wow,' Chad thought again 'Gabriella cheated?' Their relationship had been the epitome of love, of security. If she had cheated, what hope had the rest of the world got?

"The bi_t_ch cheated on me. Sure I've been gone, but to be lying up in _our_ bed with another guy right in _front_ of me?" His voice trailed of again. And once again he brought the bottle to his mouth. This time, Chad took the bottle by the neck and put it beside him on the side furthest away from Troy.

"Give it back," Troy moaned, half-heartedly. It was like he didn't even have the heart to do anything any more.

"Stay. Sleep," Chad said, letting Troy flop onto the only bed in Chad's apartment. Troy curled his legs up to his chest, wrapped his arms around his knees and slapped his lips together in preparation for the long, sobering sleep ahead of him. Chad mixed a bowl of cereal and was about to collapse onto the sofa and watch corny cartoons when some-one thumped on his door for the second time that afternoon. Another tear stained face was opposite him. But this time, the tears were tears of sad, sorry guilt.

"What the hell do you want Gabriella?" he asked icily. Gabriella was about to walk into his flat, but he stretched his arm across the door frame.

"I just need to talk to Troy. What he saw was a mistake," Chad looked at her critically.

"Yeah? And how exactly does a girl get her clothes off and wrap herself around a dude, and say the guy made a mistake?" Chad laughed. Gabriella stuttered.

"Goodnight Gabriella," he said, just as icily as he did when he opened the brief conversation. She was still stuttering when he slammed the door in her face.

"Good-morning sunshine. The world says hello!" Chad said annoyingly cheerily as he swung open the drapes in his room. Not wiling to top and tail with Troy for fear of being a) breathed on, and b) kicked off from all Troy's thrashing, he had slept on the sofa last night.

"Chad, Shut up," Troy croaked from under the covers. For one moment, he woke up and thought that it had been a dream. That he would emerge from the covers and Gabriella would be stood in one of his over sized shirts and tiny shorts, and Chad…well, it wouldn't have mattered why Chad was there. As long as he still had Gabi. To his despair, the only thing he saw when he poked his eyes over the covers to the stinging sunlight, was Chad's just plain unnaturally large hair.

"Feel any better?" Chad asked, perching on the edge of his own bed. Troy looked at him in despair.

"What am I going to do man? What am I going to do without her? I need her so much. It stings not having her by me." Troy shuddered, tears suddenly spewing out of his sockets, all the tears he had pent up the previous night. He swung his legs out of bed, noticing he still had on what he'd been wearing the previous night; an Alberquerque Thunderbirds jersey and black sweats. He rose from the bed and grabbed a jacket that was hanging on the bed post.

"Why don't you stay here for a while?" Chad offered, unhooking a key from his own bunch. Troy nodded in agreement.

"I need some air," Troy said, pulling the hood up, slipping into his sneakers and tucking his hands in his pockets and heading towards the door. It had slammed before Chad realised.

"But dude, that's my jacket!" Chad yelled at the door.

After class, basketball practise and a brief mini-date with Taylor, it was nearly 8 o' clock and Chad finally had some peace. A nagging little gremlin in the back of his mind told him he should be out looking for Troy, but after his stressful day, sitting down and watching a little TV couldn't hurt anybody. Holding a bowl of popcorn in the crook of his elbow, Chad stood in front of the couch, bent his legs so he was halfway towards sitting and darted his head around speedily, looking for something that wasn't there. Anytime he seemed to sit down and switch on his television, some-one knocked on his door or something catastrophic happened. He lowered himself very slowly towards the couch but now sooner had his buns touched the comfy sofa that a ring echoed through his house.

'_What…the hell!'_ he sighed inwardly. Obviously, tonight was not the night he was going to get any peace. He shuffled sideways to grab his phone and flipped it open.

"Yo," he said acknowledgement. The other end of the phone was noisy. It sounded like he was in a loud bar. Chad's immediate thought was _'Please no,'_

"Hey, it's Ryan. Listen, I just think you need a head's up. Troy headed you're way and he'd pretty wasted. Do you know what up with him? He was in a depressing mood all night,"

"It's a long story,"

Troy fell thought Chad's door, hand still on the doorknob.

"What's wrong with you Troy? I know you're hurting but this is not the way to deal."

Troy just glared at Chad.

"You deal in your way, I'll deal in mine." He said snappily, tossing the jacket back to Chad. Dark brown vomit stains littered the colourful motif.

"Yeah, thanks Troy!" Chad yelled.

Short version starts here

**She put him out, like the burning and off a midnight cigarette. **

**She broke his heart. He spent his whole life trying to forget.**

**We watched him drink his pain away, a little at a time,**

**But he never could get drunk enough to get her off his mind. **

**Until the night….**

Troy clanked to empty tumbler down onto the bar, signalling the bartender, Anisa, for another.

"Fine, but this is your last, Troy." Anisa grinned taking Troy's tumbler and passing him another. Whiskey. It was probably a good idea. Any more than one more and he probably would have fallen off the high bar stool. It was little less than a year after Gabriella betrayal, after Troy found her all wrapped up around some guy like a common hooker. Sinking the contents of the glass in one quick movement, he stood up from the bar. The world lurched painfully to the left. He jolted his arm out to the side to stop himself falling. Once everything was back where it had originally been, he headed towards the door, staggering and alone.

He was still living with Chad in the one bed apartment. It hadn't been a problem, as most nights Troy couldn't make it any further than the couch and slept there, now in Chad's nightly habit to wake at two in the morning, to throw a cover over Troy and check that he was still breathing. Once, a few months ago, the nightly check called for him to call for an ambulance. Blood poisoning. What a joke. Every-one was going to die sometime, why not be pissed and happy whilst it happens. Troy stumbled home in the dark depth of the night, running into some high school freshmen on the way. As he passed them by, outside an all night booze store, where they were whispering. The words "fake" "I.D." and "beer" were among the few that Troy caught. They all stopped giggling and stared. Once again, Troy's vision lurched painfully, to the right this time, and sent him to the ground. Slurring curse words to him self; he pulled himself up and sat on a bench, head in hand. The kids started pointing, more whispering, and then they all moved away from the front of the store, slipping small white cards into their jean pockets. Once again lost in his thought, more tears escaped his startling blue eyes. He couldn't forget her. He needed to forget her. There had to be a way.

Several minutes later, Troy stood at the door to what was now his apartment, struggling with four keys. He couldn't figure out which one let him in. Dropping the bottle a short distance onto the carpet, he reoriented himself and stuck the correct key into the lock, turned it, grabbed the bottle and stumbled into the apartment.

"Chad!" he yelled to the empty apartment, he realised when nobody answered. A note lay on the table. After a few minutes squinting and putting the letter nearer and further away from his face, he was able to read what it said.

Troy,

At Taylor's for the night. Her uncle just died and she really needs some support. Don't do anything stupid and don't keep on drinking after you come in. Go to bed, sleep it off. I'll be back tomorrow.

C.

He slumped at a stool at the kitchen table.

"This is to you Uncle Mckessie!" Troy yelled at nobody again, raising the bottle, an attempt to forget the girl lying heavy on his mind. Staggering into Chad's room, he fell onto the bed, drained the last pathetic drops of his whiskey. Pulling out his wallet, he rifled through it, quickly and frantically, until he found her picture. Gabriella's picture. The picture. Just the thought of her hurt him. He felt every pain, every pain he'd ever felt come flooding back to him. Reaching across to the dresser, he smashed the bottle, shards flying everywhere. Taking the now shattered neck, he held it to his chest as he shouted his last words.

"I hope your happy Gabriella! I hope you enjoy your life! Be happy, fall in love, have beautiful children. But not with me-Good bye Gabriella!" Each word managed to escape his mouth, though the last only barely, as he plunged the jagged edge into his heart. A heart that was now as dark as coal, as heavy as a rock, and as cold and empty as ice.

As death took him over, his hand kept tight grasp on the picture of the girl that had sentenced him to death. The same girl who, one week later, at his funeral, stayed long into the night, after everyone else had gone, and cried, cried, cried into the comforting leaves of the willow that hung over where he lay, singing to herself:

'**La, la,la,la,la,la,la,**

**La,la la la la la la.'**

**He put that bottle to his head, and pulled the trigger**

**And finally drank away her memory.**

**Life is short, but this time it was bigger.**

**Than the strength he had to get up off his knee's.**

**We found him with his face down in the pillow.**

**Clinging to her picture for dear life.**

**And when we buried him beneath the willow. **

**The angels sang a whiskey lullaby. **

**REVIEW PLZ REVIEW PLZ REVIEW PLZ**


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